Bobi Wine in Buganda is the most consequential schedule in this election

That we expected this election to be violent from the very beginning – and are shocked nothing outstanding has yet happened – is telling enough: Our so-called democracy is simply regimes of violence and poorly-choreographed pretensions.

Indeed, the entire country understands (as does NRM-Museveni team) that the incumbent does not win because of the superiority of his manifesto or country-wide campaigns. But rather, in addition to controlling the Electoral Commission, they also control the cash vault, and the tools of violence.

Slightly over a month in – of the three months of campaigns – and no major episode of violence, the entire country seems shocked at what appears like a peaceful election thus far. In all honesty, it is too early to celebrate.

The election is yet to come. Notice also that previous elections – which have made us anticipate even more large-scale violence – are never violent throughout the entire electoral season.

But one or two moments of violence shake us to the core, and become definitive of an entire season. So, as they say in football terms, “it is not over until it is over.” We need to run their entire stretch of 90 minutes – but also watch closely the days after the election.

Sometimes, the hottest blows are exchanged after the final whistle. But before the final whistle is blown, we need to remember that the incumbent, Gen. Yoweri Museveni is never afraid of this fairly emasculated opposition as long as they are looking for votes.

He is rather afraid of the season and the excitement, inspirations and anxieties that come with it. Museveni understands that the entire country agrees that elections under him are nothing but a circus.

A thing he has to go through because it is norm. To this end, his major fear is what more could his opponents – especially the leading opposition figure, Hon. Robert Kyagulanyi – get tempted to ask of their crowds beyond votes.

It is not even that Kyagulanyi is planning to ask for anything more than votes. But that his crowds, in one single moment of euphoria, could force him to abandon the campaign trail and simply seek to take the presidency.

This is Museveni’s utmost worry. Notice that this cannot happen with Kyagulanyi, who is 100km-300km away from the seat of government. It can only happen when he is in a radius of 50km or less, from, specifically, Radio Uganda, Nakasero State House, and Parliament.

To this end, it is my sobering contention that this election is determined by what happens with Bobi Wine’s Central Uganda/Buganda schedule.

WHY ONLY THE CENTRAL MATTERS

In old political science, the revolutionary was expected to connect the rural and urban areas for a revolution to happen. But this was political science theorizing in the 1970s and 1980s where to be a revolutionary actually meant picking up arms and going to the bush.

To this end, the revolutionary had to connect with the countrysides as rural folks provided both the core foot-soldiers in addition to hiding the rebels in the course of the war. This is Museveni three-one-one.

Thus, the rural folks had to be convinced about the war itself – and find themselves connected to the urban elite. Notice also that then, production of wealth organized around cooperative societies where farmers – of coffee, cotton, tea, sugarcane – had direct connections with the urban elite who also thrived from the same chain of production.

In this respect, the revolutionary had to be directly connected to the peasant farmers. This era ended. This connection is broken.

The neoliberal capitalist modernity killed these cooperatives to the point that most of urban Africa, especially in Kampala, feels fairly disconnected from the countryside despite living and thriving in the same polity.

The peasant farmer nowadays sees the urban dweller as foreigners. We are all thriving on different things. Despite connections with especially food supplies, the rural and urban folks are not connected.

The rural folks make their living through selling supplies to urban folks, and urban folks make their money from non-rural related things. See, while the richest of the 1970s and 1980s derived their wealth from working with the peasants – in coffee, tea and cotton, among others – the so- called rich of nowadays are engaged in dealerships with the foreign capital.

They are commissioning agents. They are cutting deals with corporations and have conspired with the foreign capital to simply exploit their rural compatriots. (In truth, they are not really rich so to speak).

The point I am making here is that the urban folk exist independent of the rural folks. The revolutionary thus does not need to connect rural and urban. Relatedly, the 2010s became the era of the supremacy of individual human rights.

If the Arab Spring was a gold standard, one only needs to organize the urban poor onto the streets of major capitals, and the government will find itself hard-pressed to sustain the façade of human rights.

President Yoweri Museveni’s worst fear is a situation where his team is forced to shoot and kill a thousand Ugandans marching to State House. To this end, he is ready to do all that in his power to make sure Bobi Wine’s campaigns, specifically in the central region, do not inspire any revolutionary dreams beyond simply seeking votes.

Thus, the dogs, the tear gas, the hooligans dressed in NUP colours (to legitimate more arrests) are all executed in a more controlled fashion not to result in a pushback.

FROM OVERWHELMING TO PIECEMEAL VIOLENCE

We might not see an overwhelming moment of violence (hopefully), but a series of low-key moments but core to the spirit of potential revolution.

What has happened is an overall transformation of violence from the overwhelming to piecemeal nature, almost clandestinely. When arrests happen, the entire team isn’t taken, but a select few.

When teargas is dispensed into crowds, they will tend to be controlled not to entirely scandalize the country. About three weeks ago, the number of ‘fresh arrests’ had reached 150. It must be over 200 by now.

These are not random arrests, but carefully-selected arrests of Bobi Wine’s inside staffers. The men and women who give Bobi Wine momentum and oomph are being picked and not returned: It started way before with the arrests of Eddie Mutwe, then Waiswa Mufumbiro, and many other little known but key Bobi Wine associates.

There is method to the arrests. The entire idea is to strip the leading opposition candidates – the potential revolutionary – of an electoral, revolutionary engine.

At the end of the day, Bobi Wine will find himself with a threadbare team, with the remainder all thoroughly frightened. All that will be left would be to lazily saunter to the finishing line.